One day I woke up and realized I'm not a baby nurse anymore. I'm not even a young nurse. I'm a real adult who has now been doing this for years, and I'm definitely expected to know what I'm doing at all times. And that's fucking terrifying.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The human body...and ass branches

Simply put, the human body is amazing. It is incredible that something this complex, with this many parts, can work together so well. Most of the time, it works so well that we don't even notice it. But when it goes wrong, it can go ridiculously wrong.

What got me thinking about this was first the visit I paid to a group of students working on this semesters cadaver, and then later the episode of Trauma: Life in the ER that I was watching. Let me expound.

Last year, I participated in an independent study class where we dissected a cadaver. Some schools have big fancy cadaver labs, and pretty blue gowns to wear, and nice spotlights to shine on hard-to-see body parts. Not so with my school. We bought Netter's Atlas, were given a body, and went to town. Looking back, it's almost criminal the amount of fun we had with this body, whom we named Ernie. Ernie provided us with endless hours of learning, holy s**t moments, and nasty funk smell that never came out of our hair. I got to see firsthand the human body in all it's glory, up close and dirty like the pictures in textbooks can never tell you. And it was amazing. I gained an understanding of just how intricate we are, which I will never forget.

So with that in mind, I stopped by the cadaver group this semester to see how things were going, and I am happy to see that the current crop of students are having as much fun and learning as much as I did.

The second event today that got me marveling at the human body was the episode of Trauma. In it, some guy fell off a ten foot ladder and impaled himself on a rather large tree branch. It was about 3 inches thick, and just about a foot of it was sticking out of his rectum (damn near killed 'em! - that's for you, artillerywifeCQ). When he was opened up, the other three feet of the branch went all the way through his abdomen, into his chest cavity. Amazingly, the only things damaged were his rectum and bladder. It's just so crazy to me that his body just molded around this branch, and very little damage was really done. Our bodies are amazing, really.

So here I am, thinking deep thoughts and marveling at how well put-together we are. I'm thankful that all my body parts are working like they should, and I'm thankful that I believe in a God who created me, intricate as I am. I'm also thankful I don't have a four foot branch sticking out of my ass. But that's just me.

So this one time I made a blogfriend who also likes beer, youtube videos of kittehs, facial hair, and the F word. Now Hood Nurse is a guest blogger on here! The internetz are funny like that sometimes.

140 characters of snark

DISCLAIMER

HIPAA. Trust and believe, these stories are halfway made-up and halfway made up of lots of other stories. I will protect patient privacy like it's my job. Because it is.

Most of the photos showing mundane things are ones I took. If not, they're from google search. Ain't no real patient pictures up here, folks.

While I appreciate those reading the blog, I don't advertise for any website. I can only be responsible for my own opinion, and thus politely decline any offer to "host a post" or otherwise advertise something not written by me...But thanks anyway!